


The Lounge Singer's Eyes

by ArmedWithAStaringFly



Category: The Halcyon (TV)
Genre: Betsey backstory, Betsey is supportive of AAAALL love, Betsey knows about Adil and Toby, F/M, Headcanon, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-25 21:40:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12044823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArmedWithAStaringFly/pseuds/ArmedWithAStaringFly
Summary: Betsey can see much of everything from atop her little perch onstage. And she certainly could see enough to know about Toby and Adil.





	The Lounge Singer's Eyes

Those boys didn’t know that Betsey knew, but she knew. 

It is said that the bartender hears everything. As far as Betsey understood, that was largely true; words easily tumble out of a drunken mouth, a little more honest and raw than the molded politeness of posh English society. But it isn’t nearly as often said that the barsinger _sees_ everything, perched onstage above their heads and always watching the ins and outs of the crowd. How they move to the music, how they react to the emotions of each song. 

She may be pegged as flighty and aloof, but Betsey Day knew that she was anything but. Hell, she knew most of the familiar faces in this hotel better than they did. So just as she saw Emma’s eyes sparkle at Freddie and her double checks in the mirror when he was due to visit (”Don’t be ridiculous, Betsey. We’ve known each other since we were kids, he knows what I look like”),  she eventually realized that Toby and Adil were sweet on each other. It was rather blatant, actually, when one cared to look.

Maybe it was that she knew what to look _for_. The first homosexual Betsey had ever met was a bandmate from years ago, when she was just starting out and barely past singing on the streets for her supper–skeevy, greasy nightclubs were the next step up. Johnny had been quiet and withdrawn, like Toby. Never much for talking. Clean cut and a gorgeous tenor. Liked by the ladies. Yet he hardly ever tried to engage with them, and would only blush and stutter when she pointed it out. When Betsey finally got enough behind on rent that she was kicked out of the shack she shared with four other girls, he had been the one to offer her his couch. Her initial thought was that he was sweet on her. That is, until the third night she spent cuddled up on the scratchy, stained sofa in his two-room apartment. Johnny must have forgotten she was there, because he returned from a night out more sloshed than she’d ever seen him, giggling to himself and mumbling to someone else who’d stumbled through his door. She’d lifted her head to look, only to see him and another young man disappear into the next room, arms around each other. Betsey had flopped back down onto the couch with her hand over her mouth, too shocked to sleep until the sun was filtering through the uneven blinds. She wasn’t sure when the other young man had left, but when a hungover Johnny with his red curls in disarray came sauntering out of his room in the morning, he stopped short at the sight of her. His face paled. She didn’t say anything, though.  Why would she, when doing so might mean she was out on the street? But he knew that she knew. She was young then, not as good at faking her emotions. 

She’d met other men like that, mostly in the business. Some women too. They were never open about it, not really. But when enough drinks go down and everyone in the band knows each other’s dirty secrets, things become clear if never spoken.  Honestly, she didn’t much care who you were shacking up with as long as you didn’t complain when she was late, stayed on beat during the songs, and didn’t get grabby when the gin started to flow. Besides, she was not one to lecture on sexual morality. Glass houses and all that. 

She suspected Adil first, not too long after she started working there, though she couldn’t quite put her finger on what tipped her off initially. He was a sweet boy. He and Sonny related to each other, as they were both used to being one of the only dark-skinned man in the room, far away from the countries that they’d grown up in. They looked out for each other, in that sense.

“It’s amazing,” Adil chuckled once, wiping down a whiskey glass as she and Sonny sat on the other side of the bar after a long rehearsal, “no matter how drunk some of these gore get, they still seem aware enough to place a hand over their coin-purse when I walk up.” 

Sonny shook his head slowly, before nodding in agreement. “And they always think that they’re being so discrete about it, as well.”

“That politeness dies as the night goes on,” Adil noted, “at least for most of them. Surprisingly many of the women.”

“Others get sweet on you,” Betsey teased, and it was true: the majority of women in the bar hardly noticed anything but the brown hands that were passing them drinks. But Adil had a face that made  _her_  jealous the first time she saw it, for God’s sake. Though none of them would ever admit it, she’d seen one or two young ladies take second or third curious glances at him across the bar. “Maybe one day you can wrap one of these gentry in some sordid affair,” she laughed.  Adil had to have seen the looks he received. He never seemed to care–but that didn’t mean he didn’t. Despite her teasing, they both knew that Adil risked a lot more returning a titled white woman’s interest than she did giving it. 

She expected Adil to scoff, laugh along with her, or even jokingly agree. Instead his face kept perfectly blank even as he scrubbed at the glass a little faster. She and Sonny shared a glance, until his mouth opened. 

“What an idea.”  

“Aw, come on,” she drawled, “you’ve never considered seducing a nice rich English girl?” 

At that, Adil replied immediately with a smirk and a bittersweet laugh. “No, afraid not.” He placed the glass down into its cabinet. And with a nod, he left to return to the wine store.

With a jesting look of apprehension, Sonny took her hand and led her away from the bar. Though her thoughts lingered with it. 

She realized why when a debate broke out among the servants, in hushed voices and away from Emma (because who didn’t know, really?) on which Hamilton son was preferred. Adil was never much more than a passively listening ear when it came to downstairs gossip, but in this one he seemed to linger on the edge of the shelves, mouth pursed and ears open. 

“Freddie Hamilton hardly looks our way, unless we’re tall and blond and named Emma.”

“But Toby is so surly,” Tom said, “I don’t think it’s any kind of plus that he talks to us because his lot won’t occupy him…” Then, Tom perked up, and he turned towards the shelf that Adil was standing beside, “Hey, what do you think? You’re always chatting up the younger one, come to think of it.”

Adil’s eyes widened. Suddenly he looked as if Tom was pointing a gun at him. “I…I wouldn’t say that.” 

“What are you talking about? I don’t think  _I’ve_  served a drink to him in weeks. And it’s not like he doesn’t drink.”

Adil looked quite interested in the labels on the bottles beside him. He appeared almost nervous, a look Betsey couldn’t remember ever seeing on him. “I…don’t think Mr. Hamilton only talks to us for that reason. He could keep to his class, if he wanted. He’s interrupted conversation with gentrywoman to talk with me. I think he’s just…kind.” A pause, and then, “Of course, I could be very wrong.”

Tom looked mildly surprised, but shrugged and turned back to the circle. Betsey watched Adil quickly take a few bottles from the shelf, and then rush out as fast as his professional demeanor would allow him. 

It took Betsey  a couple more minutes. But then her eyebrows shot up with realization. “Oh my  _God_ ,” she whispered.

Maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t a sordid affair with the English _women_  that Adil had in mind. 

She kept a careful eye on them the next time she was onstage. And by God, she was almost aghast that she hadn’t noticed it before. As Toby drifted towards the bar, Adil’s face would flick over to him, just slightly. He’d watch the empty seats near him, as if trying to pull him over with his thoughts. Every time Adil turned away from Toby, he wore a shy smile she’d never seen on his usually so professionally stoic face–truly, could only mean one thing. 

And Toby? Now that was the curious part. 

When the music swelled, she hit the longest, most somber and longing note, and it was like clockwork.   _Lucky you, sweetheart,_ she thought with a smile in Adil’s direction,  _it definitely isn’t just the occasional Englishwoman that’s sneaking looks at you._ She just barely hid the amused smirk. Seems the Hamilton brothers have more in common than anyone thought, as they both have a taste for the wares downstairs. 

As time went on, something shifted. She didn’t know how it happened, or how Toby managed to hide it from that mother of his–God knows his brother hadn’t been very adept at that–but those looks were no longer shy and hidden from each other. Now they were exchanging knowing eyes and enough flirtatious stares to be a touch obscene–really, what’s her drunkenly falling asleep in the occasional hotel bed compared to Toby Hamilton ogling his little boyfriend in the bar? Their conversations were shorter in public, but Betsey knew what that really meant–they were longer behind closed doors.  

Or in the back room. Because Betsey plainly heard an Indian and English accent whispering to each other in the dead of night when she walked the hall, with a few low, gentle laughs to boot. She made sure to step a little louder, letting her heels echo through the shelves. The whispering stopped dead with a tight “ _shhh!_ ”

“Watch yourselves, boys,” she mumbled to herself with a smirk, which she barely suppressed when Toby Hamilton came waltzing down the hall, looking not nearly as casual as she knew he wanted to. 

The ballroom was still the most interesting, though. No one else seemed to notice; granted, there wasn’t much about Toby that others noticed much at all. Betsey knew she wasn’t innocent in that regard either, until now, and to be fair others not noticing is the best thing for them. But the boy she once looked right over had a depth to him that she never knew. When the beat got slow and the piano was heartbreakingly beautiful, Toby’s looks towards Adil were nothing short of longing. She knew why. All around them were twisting, turning couples, wrapped up in each other as much as polite society would allow. She could see written on his face, even from the distance. Adil seemed determined to ignore it all. 

The tragedy would be rather romantic, if it weren’t so doomed and foolish. 

The thought almost made her think of someone else, someone who made her own heart beat faster and the songs mean something more than words she pretended to feel. But she chased that thought from her mind almost as soon as it arose. She didn’t have to look to know that his eyes were on the piano, and if they did look her way, she certainly didn’t deserve it. 

Doomed and foolish indeed. 


End file.
